The Talk

So, I had to have the talk with my kids yesterday. The talk about responsibility and independence and basically not wanting to walk into a bunch of shit when I get home from a long day. Let me take a step back and let you know what led to "the talk". I had a 5am till 6:30pm kind of day yesterday with work from 5 and having to finish up a bunch of stuff at the house we are moving out of. So I am totally exhausted because of this day and also the many days of not much sleep before it due to moving. I get home to walk into a huge mess of Legos and styrofoam and cat puke and cat litter all over the bathroom floor and a huge pile of dirty dishes. Also the one big chore that I gave them with the promise of payment was not completed, so you can imagine the frustration brewing. I went and sat in my room to take a breath and maybe shed a tear or two (again, exhaustion), and came out to have the talk in a calm and collected voice. I told them that I don't want to get home from a long day into a total mess, that the many boxes needing to still be unpacked is mess enough. I reminded them gently that we don't have a dishwasher anymore or the abundant space and so dishes need to be taken care of promptly. I reminded them that there is no cat door into a garage anymore where just the cat can get through to his litter box and the importance of keeping the dog away from the cat food, etc. I also asked them to once again go check the yard for all sticks and where I had seen more so they could take care of that chore and get paid. I told them that I wanted them to be able to have their independence and trust that they are going to be safe and responsible at home on their own while I work and that I want them to gain more and more independence. They listened, I think they got it...atleast the 14 year old did. As I made dinner later last night, my daughter asked what she could do to help and I asked her to vacuum the styrofoam and the litter up. She said she understood that I was exhausted and if she could also help with dinner she was willing. I went to bed with peace in my head. Today I got home from work and she had taken care of all the dishes that they had used for breakfast and lunch and she was just finishing up taking care of some cat puke, probably due to the anxiety of moving. Today I didn't feel as frustrated and the kids cooperated and were peacefully watching a movie together. Today was a good day and I am thankful that I decided to have "the talk", because open communication is so important. I did have a picture of the clean sink area, but no Internet yet means no easy way to share that picture. I think you guys get the point though.
Till next time.
~Yasmin

Slow Food Saturday

I'm back! So I was thinking about how I can try to keep this blog up. Life is super busy, but I need my creative outlet back. So I thought I would start with atleast one weekly blog commitment and while I am at it why not make it something that comes easy for me. Cooking is definitely something that I love to do in my free time, for my job,  basically all the time. So slow food Saturday it is. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to link up your slow food goodness in the comments. FYI, the reason this was not posted on Saturday is because I had major technical difficulties. Wow it is almost impossible to do a new post with pictures through a smart phone. Anyway, on to the food...

Just some banana nut muffins, cleaning of some shrimp for a future meal, and some stuffed shells with garlic bread of course. What did you make?

Yasmin

A week of meals

In an effort to get more organized, I put up a chalkboard to have dinners listed for the kids' sake and I was also asked to put chores on the board for them...yes, they asked me to do this. The plan eventually is to paint a chalkboard onto a wall in the kitchen for dinner plans and shopping lists. I just need to find the time and motivation to do that...I already have the paint. So, without further ado, here are the meals for last week when they were here with me.

Baked potato with flounder for the boy and with chicken for the girl, with a side of avocado because you can never eat too much avocado.

This is what I ate on Tuesday, a bunch of sauteed veggies with bacon, guacamole, and a fried egg on top. I'm sure most of you know what mac and cheese looks like.

Wednesday was my day off, so I actually made an effort for breakfast for myself and made Shakshuka...it was delicious.

I made dirty rice with beans and mushrooms for dinner + I added ground turkey for the girl who got home from a track meet at almost eight pm. She was starving.

I forgot to take a picture of the pesto pasta for Thursday night before it was completely gobbled up by the kids, so instead here is my lunch from today, which also happens to be my day off. I made an Italian style salad with a side of baked skinless chicken breast tenders topped with garlic, lime, and herbs. It was delicious and just what my body was craving. What is it about warmer weather and wanting fresh light fare?

I needed to share more pictures of this beautiful rhododendron bush in front of my house. It has only gotten fuller since the last time I took a picture. I stare out at this bush from my couch and get to admire the butterflies, birds, and bumblebees that like to visit the flowers. So pretty. Well, off to pick the kid up from track practice. Till next time,

Peace,

Yasmin

Spring!

Spring has certainly arrived! We are having gorgeous weather during the day and nice cool nights. The only thing we need more of is rain, but all in all I am seriously enjoying this weather that has me wanting to be outside and to bring the outside in.

I am starting a garden at a friend's house; we have four raised beds (even one that we made from scratch). We also have raspberries, blackberries, squash, zucchini, cucumber, and radishes outside of the beds. In the beds we planted, sweet onions, leeks, green onions, beans, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, red pepper, jalapeno, nasturtiums, basil, okra, rainbow carrots, danver carrots, and probably some more things that I forgot. We plan on planting corn in rows on the outside of the fence, as well as pumpkins, and sunflowers. Closer to the house we plan on planting many salad greens and a large variety of herbs. I am so excited that I finally get to have a real garden...I just pray that things do grow and ofcourse for rain.

Bringing the color indoors, I got all of these flowers for free at work during employee appreciation week. I just love flowers. I think if I had a lot of money I would probably buy a bouquet once a week at the tailgate market. They just make the home so much more cheery, don't they.

Some herbs at my house...all free herbs that were dying from my workplace. I am trying to bring them back, but I'm afraid that the basil might not make it.

This flowering bush that I get to look at out of my window everyday. With temperatures just over 80 degrees recently it finally bloomed.

Spring has also brought a need/want for spring cleaning, so after cleaning my house a bit, I helped a friend clean their house as well. I think the cat had other plans.

I have a lot more plans for cleaning/organizing at my house, while I have this Spring fever momentum. Sometime soon I will do a corners of my house post to share bits and pieces of organization. For now, I'm off to cook some dinner for myself.

Peace,

Yasmin

A week of meals

Today I thought I would share what a week of meals can look like at my house. It's not really a weeks worth, but it does cover the four or so days that I have the kids and honestly I usually try to use up the leftovers when they aren't here, so that I don't have an enormous amount of waste. So, without further ado:

Paleo style meatloaf with a homemade tomato sauce on top. I put lots of veggies in this one, basically whatever I had on hand and the meats were ground beef and spicy Italian sausage.

Split Pea Soup with spinach asiago bread.

Hamburgers/veggie burgers (for my son), served with herbed potato salad.

Pasta with the spinach asiago bread served with a salad on the side.

I try to take my lunch to work everyday, and so I don't mind if I make too big a batch of something. The meatloaf was great, because I made some sides so that I could have a slightly different meal a few days in a row. I do try to see what I have in my fridge on Saturday or Sunday so that I can plan out our meals for the week in advance. This takes out the indecision on school days when we are rushing to get home from work or pick up a kid from here and there or go to a track meet or go to soccer practice. Yes, life is busy isn't it. I leave you with one more picture to show you what can happen when you have a no screen time on school nights household. Lovely isn't it...almost harmonious building of a puzzle. Have a lovely night my friends.

Peace, Yasmin

Birthday Boy

 Hello friends,

 This little guy had a birthday this past week on the 8th. He had a big birthday where he turned double digits, oh my!

His favorite Mexican restaurant for a seafood quesadilla.

Favorite meal #2; Mushroom, broccoli, cheddar quiche.

Favorite meal #3; Spinach and Mushroom lasagna.

Lemon pound cake for dessert, yum.

I really could not believe that he turned ten, where did the time go? As I started to reminisce about his childhood so far and what an awesome, caring, sensitive, creative guy he is...I saw something on the tele about a mom dropping her kid off at college and she started sobbing and then I was sobbing, ridiculous I know. Honestly, I don't have much time left until my older daughter is off to college and so I need to remember to cherish these moments with her...even when she turns into a moody teenage monster. 

Ok, enough reminiscing. A little bit about his birthday week. I only had the kids Sunday through Wednesday that week, so I decided that we should celebrate every night that he was with me with his favorite meals. He quite enjoyed having pretty much a week of birthday celebrations and my mom came over one of the nights so that we could do birthday presents. I don't quite have my act together at the moment, so no homemade gift for him this year, but he did get a lot of shark themed gifts and also some art supplies. We also got the book Firefly Hollow to read together and so far it is a pretty good one.

So, I know it has been a ridiculously long time since I last blogged, well let me tell you what is going on. My computer died quite some time ago, and so I just have my Ipad Mini to be able to do any blogging and let me tell you, what a pain in the you know what that is. It takes an aggravatingly long time to upload pictures and to get them situated exactly the way I want them to. So how is it that I am blogging right now you ask?, I recently got reacquainted with my library and of course they have computers. I will try to visit on a weekly to biweekly basis so that I can try to keep the blog updated, who knows maybe I can visit more than that. The time between my son getting off the bus and my daughter needing to be picked up from school is a great time for me to get to the library and jump on the computer while my son does his homework. Now I just need to dig out my phone so that I don't have to e-mail photos from my phone and then download them onto this computer...another pain. Till next time my friends,

Peace,

Yasmin

The importance of sleep

Hello friends,

This week I go to work early everyday. So early in fact that I need to think and plan ahead or I will suffer from serious lack of sleep and the kids might suffer from pitiful breakfasts. So, I plan easy meals/snacks that can be eaten in a jiffy for those people (mainly my son and I) that prefer mornings not completely rushed. I honestly have not had the cooking/baking bug hit me since I moved. I am usually too exhausted most days and I have a feeling that not really moving into my new place may have had something to do with it. I only have this hunch, because I finally put some pictures up and my energy levels went up. With my higher energy came the cooking bug...it probably didn't help to feel overwhelmed with having to still do so much with the whole moving in process. To be honest, I still have a whole garage to take care of, but I think this cooler weather will help me hunker down and get it done. The colors have started to change, yay.

Frittatas are a genius concept, so easy and such a great vessel to use up stuff in your fridge. This one has mushrooms, onions, and shredded pork in it. 

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Hard boiled eggs for my egg loving son.

Does anyone else brew coffee the night before?

Delicious blueberry muffins....I have to get back to my weekly muffin baking habit.

Now, it is time to get some of that sleep.

Night,

Yasmin